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At least 541 records · Page 30

Use of Spatial Metadata Simplification for TEMPO

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA provides atmospheric science data products and services to the science community, including enhanced search and subsetting capabilities for numerous Earth Science datasets. The ASDC is the official Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) of record for the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument. TEMPO is situated on a geostationary satellite positioned at a longitude near the center of the conterminous United States and focused on North America, making hourly swaths of its field of regard from east to west. Spatial metadata is an essential component for the discovery and distribution of Earth Science data. The simplified polygonal boundaries representing the archived data files ensure that any granule can be identified quickly and accurately by a geospatial query. Historically the Douglas-Peucker algorithm has been used for polygon simplification; however, due to the nature of the algorithm, a buffer must be added to the polygon before simplification to ensure pivotal points are not removed by the algorithm. This adds in additional error to the polygon simplification. ASDC’s goal is to test other methods of polyline simplification, such as Visvalingan-Whyatt and Opheim simplification alongside of Douglas-Peucker and different buffering methods, to produce less error during polygon simplification of TEMPO data swaths, and special spatial query geometries such as EPA non-attainment regions, and geopolitical boundaries.

Spatial Metadata↗

Automated Metadata Scoring Approaches for Earth Observation Data

The Common Metadata Repository (CMR) contains metadata records describing NASA’s Earth observation data products which are archived across 12 data centers also known as Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). To ensure that NASA’s data is discoverable, accessible, and usable, the Analysis and Review of CMR (ARC) Team, located at Marshall Space Flight Center, assesses the quality of these metadata records. The ARC team currently uses a combination of automated and manual methods to check metadata records for quality dimensions such as completeness, correctness, and consistency. In addition to these quality assessments, the team is currently exploring various metadata scoring methods in order to provide normalized results across the twelve DAACs. This method is conducted by using automated methods to assess metadata fields and then provide a numeric score, or grade, based on the analysis. To implement this process, two different approaches have been theorized and are currently being explored by the ARC team. This presentation will describe ARC's two proposed methodologies in more detail, and the pros and cons to using these metadata scoring methods.

Jenny Wood↗

KDD Services at the Goddard Earth Sciences Distributed Active Archive Center

NASA's Goddard Earth Sciences Distributed Active Archive Center (GES DAAC) processes, stores and distributes earth science data from a variety of remote sensing satellites. End users of the data range from instrument scientists to global change and climate researchers to federal agencies and foreign governments. Many of these users apply data mining techniques to large volumes of data (up to 1 TB) received from the GES DAAC. However, rapid advances in processing power are enabling increases in data processing that are outpacing tape drive performance and network capacity. As a result, the proportion of data that can be distributed to users continues to decrease. As mitigation, we are migrating more data mining and mining preparation activities into the data center in order to reduce the data volume that needs to be distributed and to offer the users a more useful and manageable product. This migration of activities faces a number of technical and human-factor challenges. As data reduction and mining algorithms are normally quite specific to the user's research needs, the user's algorithm must be integrated virtually unchanged into the archive environment. Also, the archive itself is busy with everyday data archive and distribution activities and cannot be dedicated to, or even impacted by, the mining activities. Therefore, we schedule KDD 'campaigns' (similar to reprocessing campaigns), during which we schedule a wholesale retrieval of specific data products, offering users the opportunity to extract information from the data being retrieved during the campaign.

Lynnes, Christopher↗

ERTS-1 data collection system: Status and performance

The Data Collection System flown on the first Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS-1) relays earth resources data from remotely located in-situ sensors to Goddard Space Flight Center. Data is received at Goddard at least twice each day from every sensor installation and is distributed to users (who operate the sensors and transmitters) by mail and teletype. The system consists of a data formatting and transmitting unit, called the Data Collection Platform (DCP), a receiver and a retransmitter aboard ERTS-1; and receiving, demodulating and decoding equipment located at the Goldstone, California and Goddard data acquisition stations. Data is transmitted from the data acquisition stations to the ERTS Control Center at Goddard, then to the NASA (ERTS) Data Processing Facility (NDPF) where it is processed and distributed to users. Experience to date indicates that the design of the ERTS-1 Data Collection System is adequate for operational use for 50% of the users and, with minor modifications, could meet the requirements of 75%. Some users will have to augment the system by other data collection techniques to meet their operational requirements.

Painter, J. E.↗

Become EV Friendly With Planning Resources for Charging Infrastructure

State and local governments are key to the successful build-out of a nationwide electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure network. Visit the Alternative Fuels Data Center for resources on EV infrastructure planning, including key considerations and best practices for navigating regulatory updates to streamline infrastructure build-out.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Improving the Science Observing Efficiency of the Chandra X-ray Observatory via Chandra Radiation

The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), NASA' latest "Great Observatory", swas launched on July 23, 1999 and reached its final orbit on August 7, 1999. The CXO is in a highly elliptical orbit, approximately 140,000 km x 10,000 km, and has a period of approximately 63.5 hours (approx. 2.65 days). It transits the Earth's Van Allen belts once per orbit during which no science observations can be performed due to the high radiation environment. The Chandra X-ray Observatory Center currently uses the National Space Science Data Center's "near Earth" AP-8/AE-8 radiation belt model to predict the start and end times of passage through the radiation belts. Our earlier analysis demonstrated that our implementation of the AP-8/AE-8 model (a simple dipole model of the Earth's magnetic field) does not always give sufficiently accurate predictions of the start and end times of transit of the Van Allen belts. This led to a change in our operating procedure whereby we "padded" the start and end times of transit by 10 kiloseconds (ks) so that ACIS, the primary science instrument on-board Chandra, would not be exposed to the "fringes" of the Van Allen belts on ingress and egress for any given transit. This additional 20 ks per orbit during which Chandra is unable to perform science observations sums to approximately 3 Ms of "lost" science time per year and therefore reduces the science observing efficiency of the Observatory. To address the need for a higher fidelity radiation model appropriate for the Chandra orbit, the Chandra Radiation Model (CRM) was developed. The CRM is an ion model for the outer magnetosphere and is based on data from the EPIC/ICS instrument on-board the Geotail satellite as well as data from the CEPPAD/IPS instrument on-board the Polar satellite. With the production and implementation of the CRM, we present the results of a study designed to investigate the science observing time that may be recovered by using the CRM as a function of the additional low-energy proton exposure to ACIS.

Virani, Shanil↗

Improving the Science Observing Efficiency of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory via the Chandra Radiation Model

The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), NASA's latest "Great Observatory", was launched on July 23, 1999 and reached its final orbit on August 7, 1999. The CXO is in a highly elliptical orbit, approximately 140,000 km x 10,000 km, and has a period of approximately 63.5 hours (N 2.65 days). It transits the Earth's Van Allen belts once per orbit during which no science observations can be performed due to the high radiation environment. The Chandra X-ray Observatory Center currently uses the National Space Science Data Center's "near Earth" AP-8/AE-8 radiation belt model to predict the start and end times of passage through the radiation belts. Our earlier analysis demonstrated that our implementation of the AP-8/AE-8 model (a simple dipole model of the Earth's magnetic field) does not always give sufficiently accurate predictions of the start and end times of transit of the Van Allen belts. This led to a change in our operating procedure whereby we "padded" the start and end times of transit by 10 kiloseconds (ks) so that ACIS, the primary science instrument on-board Chandra, would not be exposed to the "fringes" of the Van Allen belts on ingress and egress for any given transit. This additional 20 ks per orbit during which Chandra is unable to perform science observations sums to approximately 3 Ms of "lost" science time per year and therefore reduces the science observing efficiency of the Observatory. To address the need for a higher fidelity radiation model appropriate for the Chandra orbit, the Chandra Radiation Model (CRM) was developed. The CRM is an ion model for the outer magnetosphere and is based on data from the EPIC/ICS instrument on-board the Geotail satellite as well as data from the CEPPAD/IPS instrument on-board the Polar satellite. With the production and Implementation of the CRM, we present the results of a study designed to investigate the science observing time that may be recovered by using the CRM as a function of the additional low-energy proton exposure to ACIS.

Virani, Shanil↗

Release of ENDF/B-VIII.1β1-Based ACE Data Files

On March 1 st , 2023, the National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC) released the ENDF/B-VIII.1β1 nuclear data library, which contained neutron, spontaneous and neutron-induced fission yield, and alpha sublibraries. The library was released in the standard Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF) format. The files can be accessed on Brookhaven National Laboratory’s GitLab. The thermal scattering law (TSL) sublibrary will be released at a later date. The files provided in the neutron sublibrary were processed into A Compact ENDF (ACE)-formatted files, verified, and validated by the XCP-5 Nuclear Data Team. The resulting collection of ACE files will be referred to as the “e81b1” library. This report details the processing of these files and the quality assurance approach taken. This is not intended to be a full validation effort; rather, this library is intended to simply reproduce the released files for further validation testing by the community. The e81b1 ACE library will be released to the NNDC for access through GitLab and hosted locally on LANL computing resources. This library is only intended for analysis to support the future ENDF/B-VIII.1 release and should not be used for production results.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Mars Gravity Field: Combined Viking and Mariner 9 Results

A Martian gravity field of sixth degree and order has been determined from an analysis of a combination of Viking and Mariner 9 spacecraft Doppler tracking data. A short-arc technique utilizing approximately 4 hours of data centered at periapsis was used, and the data covered 16 arcs from Mariner 9 and 17 arcs from the Viking orbiters. The data were selected so as to obtain a uniform distribution of periapsis longitudes over the surface of Mars, and both S band and X band data were used where possible to eliminate charged particle effects. Inclusion of the Viking data arcs altered the Martian geoid features, as defined by previous short-arc analysis techniques of Mariner 9 data, by about 80 m in the southern hemisphere and about 140 m in the northern hemisphere.

Gapcynski, J. P.↗

Documentation for the machine-readable version of the catalog of 5,268 standard stars, 1950.0 based on the normal system N30

The machine-readable version of the N30 catalog available on magnetic tape from the Astronomical Data Center is described. Numerical representations of some data fields on the original catalog were changed to conform more closely to formats being used for star-catalog data, plus all records having asterisks indicating footnotes in the published catalog now have corresponding remarks entries in a second tape file; i.e. the footnotes in the published catalog were computerized and are contained in a second file of the tape.

Warren, W. H., Jr.↗

Investigation of radiometric properties of the LANDSAT-4 multispectral scanner

The radiometric data quality of the LANDSAT 4 multispectral scanner (MSS) was examined using several LANDSAT 4 frames. It was found that LANDSAT 4 MSS produces high-quality data of the caliber experienced with previous LANDSATS. For example, the detector equalization procedure worked well, leaving a residual banding effect of about 0.3 digital counts RMS, close to the theoretical minimum value of quantization error. Nevertheless, artifacts of the data were found, two of which were not experienced in previous MSS data. A low-level coherent noise effect was observed in all bands, with a magnitude of about 0.5 digital counts and a frequency of approximately 28 KHz (representing a wavelength of about 3.6 pixels); a substantial increase in processing complexity would be required to reduce this artifact in the data. Also, a substantial scan-length variation (of up to six pixels) was noted in MSS data when the TM sensor was operating; the LANDSAT 4 correction algorithms being applied routinely by the EROS Data Center to produce a p-type data should remove most of this variation. Between-satellite calibrations were examined in paired LANDSAT 3 and LANDSAT 4 MSS data sets, which were closely matched in acquisition time and place. Radiometric comparisons showed that all bands were highly linear in digital counts, and a well-determined linear transformation between the MSS's was established.

Malila, W. A.↗

Documentation for the machine readable version of the Yale Catalogue of the Positions and Proper Motions of Stars between Declinations -60 deg and -70 deg (Fallon 1983)

The machine-readable, character-coded version of the catalog, as it is currently being distributed from the Astronomical Data Center(ADC), is described. The format and data provided in the magnetic tape version differ somewhat from those of the published catalog, which was also produced from a tape prepared at the ADC. The primary catalog data are positions and proper motions (equinox 1950.0) for 14597 stars.

Roman, N. G.↗

A compressed marine data set for geomagnetic field modeling

Some 13 million scalar magnetic field data points that have been collected from the world's ocean areas reside in the collection of the National Geophysical Data Center. In order to derive a suitable data set for modeling the geomagnetic field of the earth, each ship track is divided into 220 km segments. The distribution of the reduced data in position, time and local time is discussed. The along-track filtering process described has proved to be an effective method of condensing large numbers of shipborne magnetic data into a manageable and meaningful data set for field modeling. This process also provides the benefits of smoothing short-wavelength crystal anomalies, discarding data recorded during magnetically noisy periods, and assigning reasonable error estimates to be utilized in the least squares modeling.

Langel, R. A.↗

Satellite altimetry

Since altimetry data are not really old enough to use the term data archaeology, Mr. Cheney referred to the stewardship of these data. He noted that it is very important to document the basis for an altimetry data set as the algorithms and corrections used to arrive at the Geophysical Data Record (GDR) have been improving and are continuing to improve the precision of sea level data derived from altimetry. He noted that the GEOSAT Exact Repeat Mission (ERM) data set has recently been reprocessed by his organization in the National Ocean Service of NOAA and made available to the scientific community on CD/ROM disks by the National Oceanographic Data Center of the U.S. (NODC). The new data set contains a satellite orbit more precise by an order of magnitude together with an improved water vapor correction. A new, comprehensive GDR Handbook has also been prepared.

Cheney, Robert E.↗

Grant Proposal for the Continuation of the Voyager Interstellar Mission: LECP Investigation

This proposal documents the plans of the Low Energy Charged Particle (LECP) investigation team for participation in NASA's Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) as the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft explore the outer reaches of the heliosphere and search for the termination shock and the heliopause. The proposal covers the four year period from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2000. The LECP instruments on Voyager 1 and 2 measure in situ intensities of charged particles with energies from about 30 keV to 100 MeV for ions, and about 20 keV to greater than 10 MeV for electrons. The instruments provide detailed spectral, angular, and compositional information about the particles. Composition is available for greater than 200 keV/nuc using multi-parameter measurements. Angular information is obtained by a mechanically scanned platform that rotates at various commanded rates. Measurements of low energy ion and electron intensities versus time and spatial location within the heliosphere contain an abundance of information regarding various transport and acceleration processes on both local (approx. 1 hr, approx. 0.01 AU) and global (approx. 11 yrs, approx. 100 AU) scales. The LECP instruments provide unique observations of such dynamical processes, and we anticipate that it will return critical information regarding the boundaries of the heliosphere. Several recent and exciting discoveries based on LECP measurements emphasize the important role that low energy charged particle distributions play in physical processes in the interplanetary medium. Yet, at the same time, these discoveries also underscore the fact that our understanding of processes in the outer heliosphere is, in most cases, incomplete, and in others, only rudimentary at best. Among the discoveries referred to above are the following: (1) Shocks: Examination of greater than 30 keV ion intensities have revealed: (a) a total absence of acceleration beyond only -100-200 keV at a strong transient shock in May 1991 at 35 AU, despite an enhanced level of seed particles; (b) a large transient shock in September 1991 of global scale, with intensities of shock-accelerated ions greater than or equal to 30 keV to approx. 30 MeV showing complex, highly energy-dependent spatial evolution, and small-scale (approx. few gyroradii), often anisotropic, micro-structures; (c) recurrent intensity increases in greater than or equal to 30 keV to -few MeV ions, with structures that, in some cases, show no correlation with the associated corotating shock. (2) Superthermal ion pressure: A global merged interaction region with a leading shock, downstream of which the superthermal ion (greater than or equal to 30 keV to approx. 4 MeV) pressure is comparable to that of the thermal plasma, and the total particle pressure yields a plasma beta of order unity. (3) Pickup ions: Measurements of the C/O ratio within transient structures at 35-45 AU showing the first clear evidence that transient shocks can pre-accelerate interstellar pickup ions from approx. 1 keV/nuc to at least 1 MeV/nuc. (4) Seed particles: Injection of ions for acceleration to high energies at the termination shock is unlikely to be a problem, since interplanetary transient and recurrent shocks are continually accelerating ions, of solar wind or interstellar origin, to highly superthermal energies. (5) Precursor electrons: Ambient solar electrons (greater than or equal to few tens of keV) that exist in the outer heliosphere ca form a broad precursor, several days wide, that is upstream of the termination shock and potentially observable a few months prior to the shock crossing. (6) Solar wind velocity at Voyager 1: We can use LECP ion data to obtain the solar wind velocity at Voyager 1, enabling us to provide critical measurement of the plasma flow as we approach and encounter the termination shock and other regions (necessary due to the partial failure of the Voyager 1 PLS experiment). The work of the LECP investigator team during the VIM will include: (1) Continuing operations with regard to the receipt, processing, verification, cataloging, display, and distribution of the data from the LECP instruments on Voyager 1 and 2, (2) Monitoring the health and performance of the LECP instruments, and evaluating and characterizing the response of the LECP instruments to various energetic particle and plasma environments, (3) Participating in, and supporting Voyager Project planning exercises and other coordinated activities relevant to exploration of the outer heliosphere, (4) Developing analysis techniques and operational procedures suitable for searching for and characterizing the boundaries and unique regions of the outher heliosphere, (5) Continuing the preparation of data sets appropriate for submission to the National Space Sciences Data Center (NSSDC) and, where appropriate, the Planetary Data System (PDS), (6) Maintaining direct Web access to online LECP data through the JHU/APL Voyager LECP home page, (7) Performing scientific evaluations of the Voyager 1 and 2 LECP data sets in conjunction with other data sets and other investigators, with particular focus on the outer regions of the heliosphere, and (8) Publishing the results of these evaluations in the scientific literature and presenting the results in scientific conferences.

Krimigis, Stamatios M.↗

Sunphotometric Measurement of Columnar H2O and Aerosol Optical Depth During the 3rd Water Vapor IOP in Fall 2000 at the SGP ARM Site

We conducted ground-based measurements with the Ames Airborne Tracking 6-channel Sunphotometer (AATS-6) during the 3rd Water Vapor IOP (WVIOP3), September 18 - October 8, 2000 at the SGP ARM site. For this deployment our primary result was columnar water vapor (CWV) obtained from continuous solar transmittance measurements in the 0.94-micron band. In addition, we simultaneously measured aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 380, 450, 525, 864 and 1020 nm. During the IOP, preliminary results of CWV and AOD were displayed in real-time. The result files were made available to other investigators by noon of the next day. During WVIOP3 those data were shown on the daily intercomparison plots on the IOP web-site. Our preliminary results for CWV fell within the spread of values obtained from other techniques. After conclusion of WVIOP3, AATS-6 was shipped directly to Mauna Loa, Hawaii for post-mission calibration. The updated calibration, a cloud screening technique for AOD, along with other mostly cosmetic changes were applied to the WVIOP3 data set and released as version 0.1. The resulting changes in CWV are small, the changes in AOD and Angstrom parameter are more noticeable. Data version 0.1 was successfully submitted to the ARM External Data Center. In the poster we will show data examples for both CWV and AOD. We will also compare our CWV results with those obtained from a GPS (Global Positioning System) slant path method.

Schmid, B↗